Testimony of basketball player Nilofar Bayat: I am proof that in Afghanistan there is no future and no hope | International | News

The captain of the Afghan wheelchair basketball team, Nilofar Bayat, recently welcomed in Bilbao (Spain), has assured that she is “the proof” of the situation in her country: “There is no future, no hope or nothing to what to return ”.

At a press conference at the headquarters of the Commission for Refugee Aid, CEAR-Euskadi, Bayat thanked all the people who have helped her and her husband, Ramish, leave their country and asked the UN and other international institutions that assist Afghan refugees.

Bayat has narrated the past days: “Suddenly the Taliban came to the government and we could not believe the situation in which we found ourselves.”

“The day they arrived at my house they destroyed everything and I was very afraid for myself and my family. Seeing the situation, I wanted to come to Spain. I received a call from the embassy and when I left home I could see how thousands of people were trying leave “, has related.

Dramatic escape

Upon arriving at the airport, it was the first time he spoke to the Taliban, who “attacked many people, beat me and my husband. It was a very difficult day.”

After asking two German soldiers for help, they managed to access the airport. There they spent two days without being able to sleep and without food until they were able to board a flight to Germany and then arrive in Spain.

Now, Nilofar is saddened and happy at the same time. Sad, because in recent days he has seen the “dangers” of the Taliban.

“They never change and they are more dangerous than twenty years ago. I am very sad because the rest of the countries are advancing and ours is moving backwards, especially because of women, who are in danger, cannot work or have rights,” he said.

In addition, she is very concerned for her family and the rest of the people who have remained there: “Yesterday I spoke with my sister to see if she could leave, and she told me that the Taliban had killed eight people at the airport.”

She is “very happy” to start a new life: “I am alive and I can start over with my husband.”

For this reason he has thanked the help of all those who have made it possible for him to reach Spain, as well as the Spanish Government “for their generosity”, and has expressed his hope that they will help the rest of the people.

Bayat, a law graduate who worked in Afghanistan with the Red Cross, also wants to play basketball again. “It will not be easy to continue with basketball, but I am not going to give it up. When I am on the pitch, I forget what is happening ”, he said.

For this reason, “as soon as possible” she will accept the offer of Bidaideak Bilbao BSR, champion of the Division of Honor league last season, to start training, like her husband, also a player in a wheelchair.

The director of the Commission for Aid to Refugees, CEAR-Euskadi, Patricia Bárcena, has warned that the exodus in Afghanistan “has only just begun”, since thirty thousand people leave the country every day.

Bárcena has asked the institutions to set up humanitarian corridors so that refugees can reach Europe without happening as happened with the Syrian crisis and its “marketing” of the distribution of places in each country. (I)